Sen. John McCain's daughter, Meghan, is like her Dad. She doesn't shy away from a good fight.
And she has taken on a formidable adversary, rightwing commentator Ann Coulter.
Meghan McCain calls Coulter a '''train wreck'' who can bring ''disaster'' to the Republican Party. The 24-year-old senator's daughter says Coulter is ''offensive, radical, insulting and confusing all at the same time.''
McCain called Coulter the ''poster woman'' for the most extreme side of the Republican Party. Referring to Coulter's record of making controversial statements, she asked: ''Does she really believe all Jewish people should be 'perfected' and become Christians?''
She threw another spear at Coulter: ''And what was she thinking when she said Hillary Clinton was more conservative than my father during the last election? Ann Coulter is not the woman we Republicans need representing us right now.''
Coulter's immediate reaction to the charges was that they didn't bother her.
McCain admitted she had only been a Republican for less than a year, but even after losing the election, she added, ''I find myself more drawn to GOP ideals and wanting to fight for the party's resurgence. And if figureheads like Ann Coulter are turning me off, then they are definitely turning off other members of my generation as well. She does appeal to the most extreme members of the Republican Party--but they are dying off, becoming less and less relevant..."
If you look at the record, it's clear that Coulter is neither shy nor temperate in expressing her opinions...
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Thus, when a disabled Vietnam veteran pointed out that most of the components in enemy mines came from U.S. duds and parts, she reportedly replied: ''No wonder you guys lost.''
When she covered the 2004 Democratic Convention for USA Today, one article began: ''Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston...'' and then she referred to some female attendees as ''corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons.''
She hasn't spared even 9/11 widows from her vitriol. Thus, in her book ''Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right,'' she criticized four women, known as '''the Jersey girls,'' who lost their husbands at the World Trade Center. Said Coulter: ''These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis.
''These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them.....I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much...the Democrat rat pack gals endorsed John Kerry for president...cutting campaign commercials...how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy.''
The record shows that Ann Coulter has a cruel streak. She seems to have no compassion. She is hardly qualified to represent either conservatives or liberals. Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, John McCain and Bill Buckley set the gold standard for conservatives. I heard them. I interviewed them. By comparison, Ann Coulter's attacks on liberals and Democrats seem mean-spirited and ugly.
